Julia Bacha: Pay attention to nonviolence

I'm a filmmaker.

For the last 8 years,

I have dedicated my life

to documenting the work

of Israelis and Palestinians

who are trying to end the conflict

using peaceful means.

When I travel with my work

across Europe and the United States,

one question always comes up:

Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?

Why aren't Palestinians

using nonviolent resistance?

The challenge I face when I hear this question

is that often I have just returned from the Middle East

where I spent my time

filming dozens of Palestinians

who are using nonviolence

to defend their lands

and water resources

from Israeli soldiers and settlers.

These leaders are trying to forge

a massive national nonviolent movement

to end the occupation

and build peace in the region.

Yet, most of you

have probably never heard about them.

This divide between what's happening on the ground

and perceptions abroad

is one of the key reasons

why we don't have yet

a Palestinian peaceful resistance movement

that has been successful.

So I'm here today

to talk about the power of attention,

the power of your attention,

and the emergence and development

of nonviolent movements

in the West Bank, Gaza and elsewhere --

but today, my case study is going to be Palestine.

I believe that what's mostly missing

for nonviolence to grow

is not for Palestinians

to start adopting nonviolence,

but for us to start paying attention

to those who already are.

Allow me to illustrate this point

by taking you to this village

called Budrus.

About seven years ago,

they faced extinction,

because Israel announced it would build a separation barrier,

and part of this barrier

would be built on top of the village.

They would lose 40 percent of their land

and be surrounded,

so they would lose free access

to the rest of the West Bank.

Through inspired local leadership,

they launched a peaceful resistance campaign

to stop that from happening.

Let me show you some brief clips,

so you have a sense

for what that actually looked like on the ground.

(Music)

Palestinian Woman: We were told the wall

would separate Palestine from Israel.

Here in Budrus,

we realized the wall would steal our land.

Israeli Man: The fence has, in fact,

created a solution to terror.

Man: Today you're invited

to a peaceful march.

You are joined

by dozens of your Israeli brothers and sisters.

Israeli Activist: Nothing scares the army

more than nonviolent opposition.

Woman: We saw the men

trying to push the soldiers,

but none of them could do that.

But I think the girls could do it.

Fatah Party Member: We must empty our minds

of traditional thinking.

Hamas Party Member: We were in complete harmony,

and we wanted to spread it to all of Palestine.

Chanting: One united nation.

Fatah, Hamas and the Popular Front!

News Anchor: The clashes over the fence continue.

Reporter: Israeli border police were sent to disperse the crowd.

They were allowed to use any force necessary.

(Gunshots)

Man: These are live bullets.

It's like Fallujah. Shooting everywhere.

Israeli Activist: I was sure we were all going to die.

But there were others around me who weren't even cowering.

Israeli Soldier: A nonviolent protest

is not going to stop the [unclear].

Protester: This is a peaceful march.

There is no need to use violence.

Chanting: We can do it! We can do it!

We can do it!

Julia Bacha: When I first heard

about the story of Budrus,

I was surprised

that the international media had failed to cover

the extraordinary set of events

that happened seven years ago,

in 2003.

What was even more surprising

was the fact that Budrus was successful.

The residents, after 10 months of peaceful resistance,

convinced the Israeli government

to move the route of the barrier off their lands

and to the green line,

which is the internationally recognized boundary

between Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

The resistance in Budrus

has since spread

to villages across the West Bank

and to Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem.

Yet the media remains mostly silent

on these stories.

This silence carries profound consequences

for the likelihood

that nonviolence can grow,

or even survive,

in Palestine.

Violent resistance

and nonviolent resistance

share one very important thing in common;

they are both a form of theater

seeking an audience to their cause.

If violent actors

are the only ones constantly getting front-page covers

and attracting international attention

to the Palestinian issue,

it becomes very hard

for nonviolent leaders

to make the case to their communities

that civil disobedience

is a viable option

in addressing their plight.

The power of attention

is probably going to come as no surprise

to the parents in the room.

The surest way

to make your child throw increasingly louder tantrums

is by giving him attention

the first time he throws a fit.

The tantrum will become

what childhood psychologists call

a functional behavior,

since the child has learned

that he can get parental attention out of it.

Parents can incentivize or disincentivize behavior

simply by giving or withdrawing

attention to their children.

But that's true for adults too.

In fact, the behavior

of entire communities and countries

can be influenced,

depending on where

the international community chooses

to focus its attention.

I believe that at the core of ending the conflict in the Middle East

and bringing peace

is for us

to transform nonviolence

into a functional behavior

by giving a lot more attention

to the nonviolent leaders on the ground today.

In the course of taking my film to villages

in the West Bank, in Gaza and in East Jerusalem,

I have seen the impact

that even one documentary film can have

in influencing the transformation.

In a village called Wallajeh,

which sits very close to Jerusalem,

the community was facing

a very similar plight to Budrus.

They were going to be surrounded, lose a lot of their lands

and not have freedom of access,

either to the West Bank or Jerusalem.

They had been using nonviolence for about two years

but had grown disenchanted

since nobody was paying attention.

So we organized a screening.

A week later,

they held the most well-attended

and disciplined

demonstration to date.

The organizers say

that the villagers, upon seeing the story of Budrus

documented in a film,

felt that there were indeed people

following what they were doing,

that people cared.

So they kept on going.

On the Israeli side,

there is a new peace movement called Solidariot,

which means solidarity in Hebrew.

The leaders of this movement have been using Budrus

as one of their primary recruiting tools.

They report

that Israelis who had never been active before,

upon seeing the film,

understand the power of nonviolence

and start joining their activities.

The examples of Wallajeh

and the Solidariot movement

show that even a small-budget independent film

can play a role

in transforming nonviolence

into a functional behavior.

Now imagine the power

that big media players could have

if they started covering

the weekly nonviolent demonstrations

happening in villages

like Bil'in, Ni'lin,

Wallajeh,

in Jerusalem neighborhoods

like Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan --

the nonviolent leaders

would become more visible,

valued and effective

in their work.

I believe

that the most important thing

is to understand

that if we don't pay attention to these efforts,

they are invisible,

and it's as if they never happened.

But I have seen first hand

that if we do,

they will multiply.

If they multiply,

their influence will grow

in the overall Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And theirs is the kind of influence

that can finally

unblock the situation.

These leaders have proven that nonviolence works

in places like Budrus.

Let's give them attention

so they can prove it works everywhere.

Thank you.

(Applause)